Yesterday I posted part one of my two-part look at the best movies of Sundance Film Festival history. Today I return with the second installment, which takes a look at the best movies from the last 16 years of the festival as Park City became not only the mecca of American independent film but the launching pad for hundred million dollar award contenders.

Dave, Devindra, Germain, and Russ chat about their thoughts on this year’s Academy Awards. How funny and offensive was Seth MacFarlane? Who still remembers Chicago? What the hell were Paul Rudd and Melissa McCarthy doing up there? Tune in and find out!

You can always e-mail us at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or call and leave a voicemail at 781-583-1993.Read More »

All this week leading up to the 85th Annual Academy Awards, Campbell has been immortalizing some of this year’s Best Picture nominees as Showdowns. And they are just too cool. That’s Argo above but, after the jump, see Beasts of the Southern Wild, Lincoln, Les Miserables and Django Unchained as only Scott C could do them. Read More »

We’ve got a bunch of cool movie art for you today. The Academy and Gallery1988 commissioned a small group of artists to create original screen prints inspired by this year’s nine Best Picture nominees. After the jump you can see some of them, including:

AMOUR by artist Matt Owen, ARGO by Anthony Petrie, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD by Rich Kelly, DJANGO UNCHAINED by Mark Englert, LES MISÉRABLES by Phantom City Creative, LINCOLN by Jeff Boyes, LIFE OF PI by Tom Whalen, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK by Joshua Budich and ZERO DARK THIRTY by Godmachine.

Gallery1988 has tweeted that “this is just the start” and there will be “more soon” including a tweet teasing the appearance of popular artist Olly Moss. The G1988 x The Academy show will run February 14th to the 17, with more details coming soon. See the first batch of art after the jump.

It’s extremely fitting that, as the 2013 Sundance Film Festival kicks off, the biggest hit from the year prior returns to theaters. Beasts of the Southern Wild, which recieved four Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Director, returns to select theaters Friday January 18. This extremely unique, extremely beautiful and extremely emotional film is well worth seeking out on the big screen and, after the jump, we’ve got the full theater listing. Read More »

Emma Stone and Seth MacFarlane woke up at the crack of dawn this morning to announce the nominees for the 85th Academy Awards. Academy members nominated nine contenders for Best Picture, with Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, and Zero Dark Thirty all in the mix. The choices aren’t totally surprising, but it’s still a strong group of competitors.

It’s always interesting to see how the Best Picture category correlates to the Best Director one, and the notable names shut out this year include Kathryn Bigelow, Ben Affleck, Tom Hooper, and Quentin Tarantino — the first three of whom were all nominated for the DGA prize earlier this week. Another notable snub that I know /Film readers will be all over is the lack of recognition for Looper, which scored in none of the major categories.

On a happier note, The Master hasn’t been getting much love so far but it managed to score three Oscar nominations, all in the acting categories. The Best Actress group proved a historic one, with both the oldest (85-year-old Emmanuelle Riva) and youngest (9-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis) nominees in the category. And the animated field went exactly the way you’d suspect, but I’m just happy to see ParaNorman get a nod. Hit the jump to read the list of nominees.

We’re already at the point in the award season where a few films have been solidified as the big winners and prime Oscar candidates. Zero Dark Thirty, Moonrise Kingdom, Silver Linings Playbook, and Lincoln have been awards frontrunners for weeks, and will likely continue to dominate slates of official accolades until the season ends with Oscars being handed out on February 24.

The Best Picture category in the Oscars is based around the efforts of producers, and so the Producer’s Guild of America nominations are a pretty good indicator of what we’re likely to see as a nomination slate for the Best Picture Oscar when AMPAS announces noms next week.

Today the PGA announced its nominations (one day early) and the ten films that were highlighted for what amounts to the PGA’s “best picture” award are: Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Moonrise Kingdom, Silver Linings Playbook, Skyfall, Zero Dark Thirty.

Nothing there for The Master, but that isn’t even much of a surprise at this point, given how things have been going. The inclusion of Skyfall is a bit of a surprise, but mostly for the fact that it is the big commercial outlier rather than The Avengers. Marvel’s The Avengers was a success on many levels, but if any one position should get a sage nod in appreciation of a job well done on that movie, it’s the producers. Same goes for Skyfall, however, so even that “surprise” is a small one.

The press release featuring all of the nominations is after the break.

One of the first big award season nomination sets went out this morning: the Independent Spirit Awards, which highlight achievement in (obviously) independent productions. The big films in this year’s nominations were Wes Anderson‘s Moonrise Kingdom; David O Russell‘s Silver Linings Playbook, and newcomer Benh Zeitlin‘s Sundance hit Beasts of the Southern Wild. Read More »

In each year, there are a handful of smaller films that come seemingly out of nowhere to blow everyone away and achieve box office success. One such title from the current crop of festival hits is the bayou-set fantasy Beasts of the Southern Wild, which garnered raves at Sundance and hasn’t stopped raking in the compliments ever since.

A movie this heartfelt and imaginative would be impressive coming from any corner of the filmmaking universe, but what makes Beasts‘ success even more exciting is that it comes from a relatively inexperienced cast and crew — starting with first-time feature director Benh Zeitlin. In a new featurette, Zeitlin takes the Creators Project with him to Louisiana to explore the set, discuss his Court 13 filmmaking collective, ponder his inspirations, and basically explain how his indie gem came to life. Watch it after the jump.

The most striking film of the summer is Benh Zeitlin‘s first feature Beasts of the Southern Wild. The movie follows a young girl, Hushpuppy, as her patched-together coastal world starts to crumble. Her father falls prey to a sickness, and her home is destroyed, as giant horned boars, called Aurochs, are freed from icy prisons before rampaging towards Hushpuppy in a charge of… well, that’s the part I’ll leave to the film.

WhileBeasts isn’t much of a spoil-able story, this featurette might give a bit more away than some like. So those who have seen the film are a better audience for this than others. The Aurochs have a heavy presence in the story, and seeing them created in very simple ways provides a stark contrast to the images in the movie.